A new poll from The Washington Post has found that Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser's approval rating has dropped 9 percentage points since 2019.
Down from 67%, the Democratic mayor's approval rating now sits at 58%. And although she is forecast to win the party's nomination handily, the survey found that voter frustrations have increased on issues such as crime and affordable housing.
Among those surveyed, 36% said crime and violence were the most important issues the nation's capital faces, having doubled from the 18% who said so in 2019.
When it comes to combating crime in the city, 73% of voters surveyed said Bowser has done a poor job, and only 23% said she has done the job well.
According to The Daily Caller, violent crime has surged in the city in 2021, with Metropolitan Police Department data showing homicides were up 14% last year. Motor vehicle thefts had an 8% increase from 2020 to 2021.
''All Americans should be safe and welcomed in their nation's capital, but unfortunately that's not the case in Democrat-run D.C.,'' Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told the Caller. ''Mayor Bowser has abused the levers of power during the pandemic with disastrous consequences.
''Our nation's capital has suffered from lockdowns that have destroyed small businesses and jobs, school closures that have locked students out of their classrooms, radical defund-the-police policies that have fueled violent crime and vaccine mandates that are shutting out many Americans, including children, from their capital city and harming the District's economy.''
The survey also found that voters have reservations about the mayor's handling of affordable housing, as 65% of voters said she has done poorly on the issue.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition recently found that D.C. is more than 20,000 units short of the housing it needs for low-income renters. More than half of the city's lowest-income renters are financially burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on rent, the coalition said.
Whatever issues voters may have with Bowser, the survey found that 47% of Democrats would vote for her in the primary, and she is well ahead of her two primary challengers in the poll.
Conducted Feb. 2-14, the poll surveyed 904 adult D.C. residents. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
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